


Married in the Morning

by wneleh



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: F/M, post-college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 00:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8079904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: What does Link know about commitment?  What does Link know about love?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The only part of this that's real is that Link and Christy married soon after graduating college - whether it was days or months after, I don't know - in a town close enough to Raleigh that I could set this there.

Link’s getting married tomorrow.

Married. 

Link.

This is a terrible idea.

It’s not that Christy’s a bad person. Quite the opposite – Rhett likes her a lot, and has from the first day they met. 

It’s Link who’s the problem.

Charles Lincoln Neal, a ridiculous name for a ridiculous hillbilly who has no business getting married at twenty-two. Barely twenty-two. Didn’t he learn anything from his own parents?

What does Link know about commitment? What does Link know about love?

Man, though, Link looks great. He looks HAPPY, way more relaxed than he has any right to be, over at the bar’s old, beat-up pool table, leaning over and showing an unfamiliar underclassman how to line up a bank shot, how to hold a cue stick, how to crook his elbow just so.

The kid’s taking the shot now. Rhett can’t see it but apparently it goes where it’s supposed to: the kid looks relieved, and Link, behind him, grasps both shoulders for a quick near-embrace shake-thing. And now the kid’s smiling so wide it’s making Rhett’s mouth hurt.

Link’s looking toward Rhett and smiling almost as wide. “Come here, I can teach you,” he mouths while pantomiming a shot, and Rhett shakes his head. Pool tables just don’t FIT, are too low, and playing hurts his back.

Link looks a little worried; but then Greg’s there, saying something that cracks Link up, and Rhett looks down at his beer, at the bits of froth that cling together to traverse the three-inch expanse, then hit an edge and disperse. 

Guh, now he’s looking for meaning, or at least metaphor, in a glass of whatever’d been cheapest on tap.

Rhett had wanted to start brewing himself this past semester, now that they were finally all legal, but Link had said he’d rather graduate than pick up a new hobby.

Link had also made the sensible observation that, whatever they brought into their place then, they’d be tearing down and moving in June. Now. 

The foamlets are so captivating that he misses that Link’s come over until he’s being shoved on the shoulder. “Scooch over, man,” Link says. “You know I hate to shout across a table.”

So Rhett scooches and Link slides into the space Rhett vacates. “Spill,” Link says. “Tomorrow’s the best day of my life, and you’re, like, brooding.”

There are a million ways Rhett should probably answer this, including going with flat-out denial, but instead he takes a shot at the truth. “I don’t think you’re ready,” he says. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting into.”

“Oh,” Link says, more a breath that voice.

Rhett decides to charge on. “Look at your parents. We have to assume they loved each other at one point, but it wasn’t enough, was it? I just don’t know how you can be making the same decisions they made and not expect the same outcome.”

“Damn, Rhett, you decide to say this now?” Link says, and Rhett can’t tell whether he’s angry, or hurt, or sad, or even just amused, Rhett’s own heartbeat is so loud in his ears.

So he’s completely surprised when Link takes his hand. “I know about commitments, okay. I know about them. I’m a frickin’ commitment expert. Why do you think I’m here, Rhett? Why the hell do you think I’m here?”

He’s squeezing Rhett’s hand pretty hard, and Rhett doesn’t know whether Link means here-the-bar, or here-Raleigh, or here-by his side. “I thought you liked me,” he blurts.

“Of COURSE I like you, you idiot!” says Link. “These notions don’t exist in isolation.”

Rhett starts to speak but Link squeezes harder. “No, let me finish,” he says. “I decided you were the most interesting jerk on the playground way back before Mom and Jimmy split. I LEARNED from that, from them, man, and I never made the same mistakes with you. Then, later, you and I, we promised each other we’d do something awesome, and me marrying Christy, that’s not going to change that. Even if the awesome thing you and I do is not screw up our own kids. I think that would be plenty awesome, frankly.”

Link’s now got Rhett’s hand in both of his, right there in a low booth in a college bar in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s the most Linkish thing Link’s ever done.

“I want more than that out of life,” Rhett says.

“Yeah, I know,” Link says. “You figure that out, maybe? Because I’m getting married in the morning.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this was going to be a slashy, drunken, post-party roll in the sheets, but neither character was really into it (Link backed out first I think, then Rhett got all philosophical and depressed on me; and, yeah). 
> 
> And then this was going to be a deep dive into all the ways Rhett observes Link showing love, but that just got tedious. Then I started on a heavy-duty commitment angle, but discussion during church yesterday totally threw my thinking about promises and commitment. I maybe want to delve more into this - I still want to write a Great Big Fight fic - but this story just had to get DONE.
> 
> And now it is. For some quantity of done.


End file.
